Cricket Massacre

Today I woke up at 8:30am, shamefully late for rural Paraguay. But it was part of an honest effort to get rid of a nasty head cold by getting a few extra hours of rest. This meant that after a leisurely breakfast of eggs and coffee over an episode of Glee, I didn’t get out to start washing my laundry until 10 o’clock. All the usual reminders from the neighbors: “You shouldn’t be working on a Sunday,” “Laundry at 10 o’clock? You should have been done with that an hour ago. This is the time of day to relax and drink tereré.”

Okay, they’re right. But I have been doing laundry on Sunday for almost 2 years now. Can’t they say their piece once and then just let me be different? Plus, I’m not a stay-at-home-mom like my neighbor, who washed on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, AND Saturday. I work all week in the school and only have weekends to wash. Whatever, I just take it and keep washing.

By noon everything is hanging to dry and the sun is sizzling the water out of it, must be about 95 degrees- comfortable enough in the shade. But today’s work is not done. Dishes are next, followed by filling up my stash of 2L bottles of water (you never know when the water might go out). After a quick pasta lunch and another episode of Glee, I’m ready to scrub the grease and grime off the gas stove ‘til it gleams.

And finally, the sweep. Around and under everything with the broom. And for once I was going to pull everything out from under the sink to get it good and clean, and hopefully find the cricket that had been hiding behind there chirping its head off for over a week.

As I pulled out the little cooler from under the sink to clean behind it, a sudden burst of movement made me jump away, and I realized that the “cricket” that had been chirping the past week was actually a cricket NEST full of many adult and baby crickets! (This is terrifying because, while I am unfamiliar with American crickets for comparison, Paraguayan crickets are HUGE- about the size of a baby chicken- they have round, bulging eyes and their serrated legs HURT you when they jump on you!) They are also FAST and can jump FAR, so after what must have been a hilarious-to-see debacle trying to kill them with my broom, I ran to get my Matatodo (Raid) and sprayed them down, which didn’t kill them but at least slowed them down enough for me to get most of them with my right flip flop. So you can imagine the scene: Me, hopping around on my left foot, frantically swinging my flip flop at the jumping monsters, trying not to spray myself with Raid, while squealing in girly disgust. Not my proudest moment.

But, victorious I emerged, sweeping the dead bodies of many adult and baby crickets out my back door.

Later that night however, I would realize that a couple of the better jumpers had escaped and set up camp behind my dresser in the bedroom… MUCH worse because this meant they would be near to me as I tried to sleep, making all kinds of chirping noises all night and keeping me alert with the threat of big black cricket creatures jumping on me in my sleep.  

Disclaimer: Despite this entry, don’t doubt for a minute that I prefer cricket invasions a million times over to ant nest hatchlings or spider egg hatchlings, both of which hatching events have occurred in the ceiling over the bed where I sleep.